Name: Jacqui Spears's review of This Must be the Place by Maggie O'Farrell
Item: This Must be the Place
Rating: 3.5
Author: Jacqui Spears

Maggie O'Farrell

An irresistible love story, an unforgettable family. Best-selling author Maggie O'Farrell captures an extraordinary marriage with insight and laugh-out-loud humor in what Richard Russo calls "her breakout book." Perfect for readers of Where'd You Go, Bernadette. Meet Daniel Sullivan, a man with a complicated life. A New Yorker living in the wilds of Ireland, he has children he never sees in California, a father he loathes in Brooklyn, and a wife, Claudette, who is a reclusive ex-film star given to pulling a gun on anyone who ventures up their driveway. Claudette was once the most glamorous and infamous woman in cinema before she staged her own disappearance and retreated to blissful seclusion in an Irish farmhouse. But the life Daniel and Claudette have so carefully constructed is about to be disrupted by an unexpected discovery about a woman Daniel lost touch with twenty years ago. This revelation will send him off-course, far away from wife, children, and home. Will his love for Claudette be enough to bring him back? "O'Farrell's prose manages to be both intimate and expansive and keenly perceptive in its insights about the complexities of marriage. Beautiful and bittersweet, THIS MUST BE THE PLACE will make O'Farrell's longtime fans swoon while prompting new readers to wonder why they've only just discovered her." --BookPage "I have been a huge fan of Maggie O'Farrell's novels for years. She writes with tremendous clarity and poise and in THIS MUST BE THE PLACE you are invested in what happens to Daniel and Claudette from the moment you meet them. A joy to read." --Jane Green "Inventive, moving, and hilarious. I loved it." --Rachel Joyce, best-selling author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

This Must be the Place

SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA NOVEL AWARD - A RICHARD AND JUDY PICK 2017 A top-ten bestseller, THIS MUST BE THE PLACE by Maggie O'Farrell crosses time zones and continents to reveal an extraordinary portrait of a marriage. 'A complex, riveting novel of love and hope that grips at the heart' The Sunday Times A reclusive ex-film star living in the wilds of Ireland, Claudette Wells is a woman whose first instinct, when a stranger approaches her home, is to reach for her shotgun. Why is she so fiercely protective of her family, and what made her walk out of her cinematic career when she had the whole world at her feet? Her husband Daniel, reeling from a discovery about a woman he last saw twenty years ago, is about to make an exit of his own. It is a journey that will send him off-course, far away from the life he and Claudette have made together. Will their love for one another be enough to bring Daniel back home?

This Must Be the Place

sam kruczek

Olivera Mitić

A fierce, reclusive woman living in middle-of-nowhere Ireland? Sign me up. I loved the characters and writing in this book. 

Despite this, I had a hard time fully engaging in the storyline and had to continuously remind myself who characters were or what was happening. The story was a bit all over the place and had so many complicated “pasts” weaving together, and I always felt like a “big reveal” was just around the corner. While this never happened, I’m glad there was a (maybe?) happy ending. 

Jacqui Spears

A fierce, reclusive woman living in middle-of-nowhere Ireland? Sign me up. I loved the characters and writing in this book. 

Despite this, I had a hard time fully engaging in the storyline and had to continuously remind myself who characters were or what was happening. The story was a bit all over the place and had so many complicated “pasts” weaving together, and I always felt like a “big reveal” was just around the corner. While this never happened, I’m glad there was a (maybe?) happy ending. 

Family ties, secrets and truths, redemption, solid writing. This was good, but I expected to fall into this book and I didn't. Maybe a case of "right book, wrong time"?

Sarah Erle

Best-selling author Maggie O'Farrell captures a remarkable marriage with insight and laugh-out-loud humor. Daniel Sullivan leads a complicated life. A New Yorker living in the wilds of Ireland, he has children he never sees in California, a father he loathes in Brooklyn, and his wife, Claudette, is a reclusive ex-film star given to pulling a gun on anyone who ventures up their driveway. Together, they have made an idyllic life in the country, but a secret from Daniel's past threatens to destroy their meticulously constructed and fiercely protected home. Shot through with humor and wisdom, This Must Be the Place is an irresistible love story that crisscrosses continents and time zones as it captures an extraordinary marriage, and an unforgettable family, with wit and deep affection.

Jenna

I cannot say enough good things about this book. The writing, the way she weaves together the stories of the characters so that you feel like you got to read 10 different stories (even though they're all anchored together with our main character, Daniel), the way she writes about relationships, and the story. The STORY! The characters! I just fell so in love with this book, I immediately went out and bought two more of her books after finishing it.

This Must Be the Place is about a marriage, and a family. It's also about a man, the man in the marriage, Daniel Sullivan. Daniel is a New Yorker who went to school in England and now lives in a remote home in Ireland with his wife Claudette and their two children. Daniel has two older children from a previous marriage that he never talks to or get to see, but not really by choice. Claudette also has one older son from a previous marriage who is off at boarding school.

Claudette, as it turns out, is an ex-movie-star turned recluse. She disappeared, just straight up ghosted society, in the middle of filming a movie by running away with her son, and nobody knows where she went. Daniel stumbles upon Claudette when he journeys to Ireland to collect his late grandfather's ashes, and voila, they fall in love and he moves there to be with her.

When Daniel heads back to the US for his father's 90th birthday, he hears a radio program speaking of a long lost lover from his past as if she's been dead for awhile. He looks into it, and she has, and he had no idea... as Daniel spends more time away from Claudette, he tries to confront some things from his past, including his far away children, and gets caught up uncovering the truth about his ex-love's death.

This story is told from multiple perspectives and jumps around in time. I just LOVED the structure of this book. For example, one of Daniel's kids loves footnotes. A chapter focused on him is full of footnotes. Another chapter is entirely full of descriptions of items to be auctioned off that used to belong to Claudette. It's so unique! And, each character has their own story, all related to Daniel or Claudette in some way, but their own so that you feel like you got to read many more books than one by the end, somehow. Maggie O'Farrell's language is entirely readable but also nerdy? Somehow? Is that a thing - nerdy language? It helps that Daniel is a linguist.

For a story about a marriage, this book is so gripping. I didn't want it to end. It was an immensely satisfying book, without a contrived intentionally satisfying ending. The way the story built, the realness of the characters (even those you only spend a little time with) - O'Farrell is so talented. So many times entire books will be about a character and I'll never feel connected or invested in them. With these characters, I was immediately invested. They immediately felt real.

This book tells a story of a complex relationship, and of a man coping with grief and confronting his demons. I highly recommend this to, well, everyone! I can't wait to read more of O'Farrells writing, and This Must Be the Place is going down as one of my favorites

It’s a very cute book that has some sprinkles of heaviness in it. the perfect mix so it is very meaningful and touching but doesn’t make you depressed. It could be confusing sometimes bc it switches between like 5 characters and 4 different time lines but I was still able to follow it for the most part. The author gives backstories or snippets about some more irrelevant characters the has so much realness to it. There was one chapter, “the girl in question” that was so touching. It wasn’t super relevant but added so much

Michael Hessling

Ah. Heart breaking and healing at the same time. So wonderful.

Luisa Claudia

Jamie Meek

Andrew Travers

Kay Sutherland

Sonia Grgas

Steve Parks

Kahli Scott

edith w.

John Elbing

Sara Holman

Susan Dobson

Julija M

Steven O'Toole

Jennifer Rittall

SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA NOVEL AWARD. SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKS ARE MY BAG READER AWARDS. SHORTLISTED FOR THE SALTIRE SOCIETY FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR. SHORTLISTED FOR THE BGE IRISH BOOK AWARDS NOVEL OF THE YEAR. A top-ten bestseller, THIS MUST BE THE PLACE by Maggie O'Farrell crosses time zones and continents to reveal an extraordinary portrait of a marriage. 'A complex, riveting novel of love and hope that grips at the heart' The Sunday Times A reclusive ex-film star living in the wilds of Ireland, Claudette Wells is a woman whose first instinct, when a stranger approaches her home, is to reach for her shotgun. Why is she so fiercely protective of her family, and what made her walk out of her cinematic career when she had the whole world at her feet? Her husband Daniel, reeling from a discovery about a woman he last saw twenty years ago, is about to make an exit of his own. It is a journey that will send him off-course, far away from the life he and Claudette have made together. Will their love for one another be enough to bring Daniel back home?

Olivera Mitić &
This Must be the Place by Maggie O'Farrell

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Olivera Mitić &This Must be the Place by Maggie O'Farrell

Reviews

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Join the club

Olivera Mitić &
This Must be the Place by Maggie O'Farrell